Steve can't help but smile as Max says her thanks and goodbyes. She exits the car and Steve follows her with his eyes. It's only a few feet from the curb to the front door but he'll be damned if he doesn't make sure that Max physically gets home safely before he drives away. He's using the term 'safely' very loosely by the way. If her stepdad's face is any indication, he's got more to worry about than demo-things and government conspiracies.
I swear to God if she shows up with bruises tomorrow, I might just do something stupid. Or, as Hawkins police would call it, a 'felony', Steve thinks to himself, as he looks over the younger girl.
Max reaches the front door and turns around to wave goodbye to him. It's stupid because he knows Max can't see him but still Steve smiles and waves back as if she could. So dumb. As Max closes the front door behind her, Steve waits for a beat waiting for… he's not sure what.
Maybe he's expecting to hear a scream like the one she did at his house. Maybe he's waiting for a sign from the universe that says 'Go save her' and he'll have to burst in the front door. Or maybe he's stalling because he's still worried about spending one-on-one time with a teenage psychic. Or maybe he's just tired. Maybe it's all of the above?
Not hearing a scream or seeing a sign from the universe, Steve drives slowly away from Max's house. If his car moved slower when he got to their front door, no one has to know. He starts driving normally once he's gotten off Old Cherry Road. Next stop, Denfield.
If Hopper just gave Max the wrong book on accident and we ended up creating a secret coded language in our head, I will throw this back at Mayfield's smug little face with an 'I told you so' first thing tomorrow morning, Steve thinks as he's driving along Denfield looking for an oak tree.
He's a high school student, not a botanist. How should he know what an oak tree looks like? As if the universe is listening to his thoughts, Steve stops at a big tree on the side of the road. The tree looked strong and sturdy and it just screams 'oak'. It doesn't hurt that there's a path to its right with tire tracks that may or may not just fit the chief of police's truck.
Steve follows the path he noticed next to the tree he's hoping is oak. It was not a smooth ride, if the road was ice cream it would've been chocolate with marshmallows and chopped nuts. How the hell did Jonathan drive through this? At night, even. Oh, yeah, Jonathan did it the same way everybody did it that night: fear and desperation. That checks out. Steve hits the brake and slows down the car as he hits a dead end.
Oak tree at Denfield? Check. Dead end? Check. Five-minute walk time.
Steve exits the car and goes to pick up the food he brought for the sick girl. As he looks around, he realizes that 'five-minute walk' isn't really a good way to indicate direction. Where the hell should he be going?
Calm down, Harrington. Take a breath and handle it one at a time, he thinks to himself.
Okay, we know that Hopper has been living here with the kid for almost a year. Which means he's walked in this direction for over a year. There should probably be some indication of a trail or something. He looks around the car and he thinks he spots a walking path with some cigarette butts scattered along its side and maybe some shoe prints if he's not imagining it.
This is the way.
Probably. He followed the path he found and it wasn't long before he spots the cabin at a distance. Well, a cabin. He doesn't know if it's the cabin but it'd be one hell of a coincidence if there's more than one of them in this area. As he's getting closer, he starts hoping that they decoded the message correctly and that Hopper (or the kid) wouldn't be murdering him for coming here out of the blue.
The cabin looked lovely… once upon a time. Once upon a 1984 though, it's seen better days. The wooden exterior is covered with paint chipped and faded from a bygone era. If the cabin could talk it would say, 'Boo! I'm haunted'. If you get lost in the woods and stumbled into this house, you'd probably think twice before knocking which kind of makes sense. It's a safehouse, not a vacation home. It's supposed to be lowkey and blend-in, not warm and inviting. The less attention paid to it, the better. Still, it must suck to be a kid stuck in there.
How is that knock supposed to go again? Steve thinks as he goes up the front steps onto the cabin's porch. There's a solid crunch of dirt, dust, and dry leaves on the wooden floor as Steve gets closer to the front door. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought the cabin was abandoned.
Steve knocks on the door using the pattern they found on the sketch pad: .. . …
Steve waits for a response and… Nothing. He tries the knock again. After waiting a beat, still silence. Maybe he's doing it wrong? Maybe it is morse code? Screw it. Steve starts to knock normally.
"Uh, El—" Steve stops himself. Maybe he shouldn't be yelling out numbers involved in a government conspiracy
"El… Jefe?" Saved it, Steve thinks to himself with unearned pride.
"It's Steve," Yeah, that wouldn't help. She doesn't know who you are, genius, Steve thinks.
"I'm the guy from the other day? With the bat and the annoying teenagers?" Silence.
"I'm friends with Mike, Lucas, and Dustin? Sort of," Steve says mumbling the last bit. Nope, still nothing.
Maybe they were wrong and no one is home. Maybe it was all in their heads. These government conspiracies really do a number on you. It'd make sense if she's not here. With the government, breathing down their necks Hopper must've moved her someplace safe. She could be anywhere. Hell, she could be in the city, blending in with her punk rock look. Accepting defeat and feeling a little sense of relief, Steve starts to go down the stairs of the porch to go back to his car. As he's going down the steps, a tiny voice inside his head snuck up on him.
El is still sick, he hears Mike Wheeler's voice clearly in his head. He can't forget the look on that kid's face when he said that. With a deep sigh and uncertainty about why he cares, he moves up the stairs to try again. He does the knock from the book again, he tried normal knocking, he tried talking, he– What's the definition of insanity again?
He sets aside the containers of food before trying the door. Of course, it's locked. Okay, let's think this through. Let's call it Harrington's wager, if Eleven isn't there, then he's just wasting time. And he'll only be wasting his time. If she is in there sick and he leaves her alone, that's infinitely worse than the downside of wasting his time. Not to mention, Hopper and his guilty conscience would inevitably kill him.
Since the alternative is infinitely worse, let's assume she's home but she's not answering. Why? Either she's ignoring me or she can't hear me. Neither scenario is positive but the latter is worse than the first one.
First step, he needs to know what's going on inside the cabin and check if a punk rock girl is hiding in there. Hopefully, she won't kill with her mind once Steve finds her. He looks through a window near the front but there are curtains in the way. He couldn't really see anything so he leans in and uses his hands to cover the sides of his eyes to get a better view inside. It didn't really work, the small gap in the curtain isn't enough to see anything. Taking a moment to think, however, he hears the faint hum of a television. Is that static?
We've established that the TV is on which means it's very much likely that somebody is home. Harrington's wager paid off. Second step, is he being ignored or can she not hear him. There's probably another window somewhere around here and he can get a better view. Steve walks on the left side of the cabin hoping to circle it. Things looked more promising when he gets to the back of the cabin, there's a window with what looked like a clear view. It's a bit higher than him so he improvised a stepladder with some things lying around so he can peek inside.
And there it is. Steve gets his answer: Eleven is lying face down on the living room floor in front of the TV. Shit.
Jesus Christ, is she okay? Steve thinks to himself before his makeshift stepladder breaks off and he falls on his ass. This little trip is not going well. He tries yelling and knocking on the backdoor. No response. She's really out cold. He keeps telling himself that because the alternative is unthinkable.
With a new resolve, Steve is now going to upgrade from peeping to breaking and entering. It doesn't bother him as much as it should considering he did arson the other day and lying to federal agents just today. His life is just one big crime spree now.
He doesn't remember seeing anything useful on the left side of the cabin so he walks around to the right side trying to find somewhere he can break into. If worse comes to worst, he'll have to break the door in.
He finds a small window near the right side of the porch. It's still obscured by the curtains but it is slightly open. He can work with slightly open. With his self-proclaimed and severely unfounded ninja skills, Steve opened the window from the outside and jumps through it. It goes about as well as it did when he was sneaking into Nancy's room. Only now it's worse because apparently there's a chair and table right below that window and he ended up just hitting the chair at an odd angle and falling face first on the floor.
Shit.
A sharp pain erupts on his face. He pushes himself off the floor, groaning and he feels his hands in contact with something wet. One of the stitches must've popped open because it was on a pool of blood that he can now feel dripping on his face. That's gonna sting later. He'll take care of his face and that pool of blood later. He stands up and heads toward the passed-out teenager in the middle of the living room.
"Eleven?" Steve asks. No movement. No response.
"Are you dead?" Steve asks chuckling awkwardly at the morbid joke. When El didn't move the only thought going into his mind is—
Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
Steve kneels down near the girl. Keeping his panic in check, he flips her over to face upwards. His lifeguard training kicks in. He puts his hands under the girl's neck to feel for a pulse. It's there, okay. It's there she's safe. Heart attack avoided. He can see the kid's closed eyes scrunch together as she groans. She is not having a good time.
Steve picks her up with Eleven's head resting on one of his arms holding her shoulders while his other arm supports the back of her knees. He carries her over to the couch. He goes into one of the rooms of the cabin and takes a blanket from the bed and put it over the sick kid.
He checks her temperature by placing the back of his hands on her forehead. Slight fever. Not really thinking about it, he runs his fingers through the girl's hair softly. He's not sure why he did that. He can hear a voice inside his head that vaguely sounds like a redhead with a bad attitude telling him that it's 'motherhood' but he ignores it for now. Eleven's hair wasn't slicked back anymore, and the makeup and clothes from the other day were also gone. She wasn't the punk-y badass who threw a demodog through a window. She's a sick and tired kid.
Who knew closing interdimensional portals could be tiring?
The kid seems to relax at his touch. From experience, he would've welcomed any attention when his parents left him sick alone. It must be the same with Eleven. He can see movement in her closed eyes like she's dreaming. He wonders what she's thinking about.
The first thing Eleven feels is hurt. Wait, no. Pain? Yes. Not like what the lab did. It's… dull? Is that the right word? Whatever, doesn't matter, it still hurts.
Ow.
The second thing Eleven feels is fire. No. Hot? Yes. Hot. Like she is the fire. She also feels… sticky. Sweat. Yes. Hot. But then she also feels cold? That doesn't make sense but, somehow, that's s]how she feels. Hot and cold. The next thing she feels is… confused. If it's so hot she's sticky from sweat, why does she feel so cold? And if she feels cold, why is it so hot and why is she sweating? If her head didn't already hurt, it would have by now just from sheer confusion.
The last thing she feels is… nice. She can feel hands running through her hair and despite, feeling hurt, hot, and cold, the touch is making her feel better. She didn't know Hopper could be this gentle. It's nice… but weird. She tries to open her eyes and squint but her eyelids were too heavy.
"Uh, Eleven? Are you okay? Are you awake?", she hears a voice call out softly.
She doesn't recognize the voice. That's not Hopper. The voice wasn't rough and deep. It was soft. It sounded younger. If she didn't feel so bad and if the hands on her head weren't so comforting, she would've been panicked. But it feels so nice and the voice is soft and… familiar. She's heard it somewhere before but she can't remember when. She tries to open her eyes again; she had better luck this time.
She finds a different face than what she was expecting. Instead of Hop's face with his scruffy beard, she found a beat-up face of a boy older than her. He looks familiar… He was from the house the other night. That's where she knows him.
"Uh… hi," the older boy says to her in a higher voice than she expected. Is that how he talked?
Not wanting to be rude Eleven also replies, "Hi."
What was his name? Dustin and Lucas wouldn't stop talking about him and Max, Eleven thinks as he stares intently at the familiar yet unknown face in front of her.
Is she trying to make my head explode? Steve wonders as he's taken aback by how Eleven is staring at him like she's looking at his soul.
"Hey. I'm Steve," the older boy says warily. Is he scared?
Steve. I remember now. Hurt. From protecting Mike, Dustin, and Lucas. Protecting friends, Eleven thinks. She nods her head in acknowledgement and sits up from the couch.
"Eleven," she says to Steve. It's rude not to introduce yourself.
"Eleven? I don't know you look thirteen," Steve says jokingly.
"Thirteen?" Eleven looks at the older boy with a cocked head, confusion on her face.
"Oh, um… it's a joke," Steve says sheepishly.
"Joke…" Eleven trails off looking like she's thinking.
"Yeah, because Eleven's your name and it's also it's a number and, um… You know what, never mind I was being dumb," Steve says quickly, "I'm a friend of the boys. Occasionally, a hostage too but mostly friend."
"Occasional… Hostage…" Eleven repeats trailing off again, thinking.
Realizing that being a lab rat for most of her life didn't result in having a wide vocabulary, Steve explains, "Occasional means sometimes. Hostage is when you take someone against their will. I say it as a joke because they take me to places, I don't want to go but I end up liking it there anyway."
Eleven nods in agreement, "Mostly friend?"
"Uh, yeah, mostly. Didn't really spend time with them before this whole mess but I can't seem to go a day without running into one of them," Steve explains.
Eleven nods again, "My friends too."
Steve nods to show he's listening and Eleven continues, "Protected them. Thank you,"
Eleven gives Steve a heartwarming smile. Steve looks down, not meeting the girl's eyes before responding, "I'm just an idiot with a bat. Anybody would've done what I did."
They wouldn't, Eleven thinks but doesn't say it out loud.
"Why are you here?" Eleven asks innocently, her head cocked again.
"Uh…" Steve's smile falls immediately, not detecting the innocent tone Eleven asked the question in.
Was I rude? Eleven asks herself.
"It's a long story," Steve answers, running his hands through his hair and putting back a smile hoping to put the girl at ease.
"Hop sent you," Eleven says.
"Okay, maybe not that long," Steve admits, "Yeah, Hop sent me. He's worried about you being home alone sick. He has to deal with the lab at the Byers house so he gave Max some secret message that we had to figure out, well mostly her, and it gave us directions to the cabin. I had to drop her off home before coming here but I got here as soon as I could."
Eleven nods, thankful that the redhead isn't here. Her head already hurts, she did not want to deal with her right now. As if the universe is trying to punish her for thinking that, her head suddenly started to ache at that moment making her wince.
"Hey, uh, Eleven? Are you okay?" Steve says worried, "How are you feeling?"
Hurt? Hot? Cold? Eleven thinks it over before settling on a word.
"Bad," Eleven says flatly, "Feel… bad."
"Fair enough. If you were feeling good, you wouldn't have been sprawled out in front of the TV now, would you?" Steve asks with a smile trying to make her feel better, "You mind telling me how you ended up on the floor?"
"No," Eleven says as the smile fades from Steve's face.
Rude again? Eleven thinks.
"Can't remember. Tried to call Hop. Wake up here. Head hurt. On the couch," Eleven offers, hoping it makes her not rude.
It must've worked because Steve's soft smile is back on his face, "The headache is either from falling in the living room or your regular sickness headache, either way, you need medicine and I didn't bring any. But I did bring soup. Which I left outside. Lie down here while I get the soup ready. You haven't had anything to eat yet, huh?"
Eleven shook her head no.
Steve nods in acknowledgement as he takes a blanket and places it over Eleven's shoulder. H ran his hand through Eleven's hair one last time before heading towards the door.
Eleven hums in relief as Steve wraps her with a blanket and ran his hand through her hair. It was enough for Eleven to sink back to sleep.
The next thing she feels is… empty.
Hungry, she thinks.
It wasn't entirely unprompted, before feeling hungry her nose picked up the most wonderful scent she's smelled in the past few days. It made her mouth and her stomach began to grumble. Hop has never made anything like this.
"Eleven? Are you awake?" she can vaguely hear Steve call out to her.
"Eleven?" Steve calls out again, more clearly but definitely softer.
She squints her eyes open and sees Steve kneeling in front of her.
"El? Time to eat. I made soup… Yesterday. Well, it's from a can but I heated it up so I'm claiming credit. I did bring dessert that Lucas' mom made. They're awesome," Steve says.
"Friends call me El," Eleven says with a coarse voice. Dry, she thinks.
"Oh, um… sorry," Steve says, immediately regretful for overstepping.
She shakes her head at Steve. That's not what she meant. She doesn't want him to feel bad again because she doesn't know the right words.
"Friends call me El," she says again before pointing at him.
"Friend," El says with a smile.
Steve looked surprised at what El said. Surprise melted into a smile before he mimics El pointing a finger at her and saying, "Friend."
El smiled brighter. She made a new friend.
"Now, come on. Soup's getting cold," Steve says ruffling her hair before heading towards the table.
Eleven follows the older boy to the table. She sets the table while Steve checked on the soup. She gets a couple of bowls from the kitchen cabinet and places them near the stove. She takes a couple of spoons from the drawer and places them on the table. It wasn't long before Steve got to the table two bowls full of soup in hand. He places one bowl in front of El and he takes a seat across from her with a bowl of his own.
Hopper didn't really cook. It's either food from a nearby diner or reheated frozen dinners. With that said, this is the best thing has eaten since staying here. Eggos will have a special place in her heart but this is something special.
El didn't even realize the soup is gone until she was staring at the bottom of her bowl. She looks up and Steve is staring at her. Was that rude? Was she eating too fast?
"Sorry," El says feeling her face turn red. She can't embarrass herself in front of her new friend.
"No, don't sweat it. I'm pretty hungry too. I was just surprised someone as small as you can eat that fast," Steve says smirking and taking a spoonful from his bowl, "I'm just happy you liked my crappy soup."
Crappy? El tilts her head questioningly.
"Soup is good. Not crappy," El offers, smiling.
"Aw, thanks. It does have a certain appeal I'd give you that," Steve says before standing up and grabbing her bowl, "Would you like some more? There's still plenty. We'd have enough left for the chief even if we had seconds or thirds."
El gave Steve the quickest head nod of her life. Steve tosses his hair, laughs, and walked towards the stove before returning with another bowl of soup.
After two full bowls and a couple of pastries, the pain in El's head is duller but a new one forms in her stomach.
"Ugh," El groans, "Full."
"I bet you are. You're giving Pac-Man a run for his money," Steve says as he takes their bowl to the sink.
"No running. Too full," El says, not sure who Mr. Pac is. Is that one of Steve's friends?
"You don't have to run but if you can get yourself to the couch, you'll be more comfortable. I'll clean up here," Steve says.
El wants to argue and help clean up but she feels so full. She doesn't want to move. Maybe she can float herself to the couch? Is it worth trying?
She closes her eyes and stretches out her hand below her, concentrating—
"What… are you doing?" Steve asks with an amused look on his face, "Were you trying to fly yourself to the couch?"
"No," El says innocently.
Friends don't lie, suddenly pops into her head.
"Yes," El says again, deflated, like a kid caught with their hand caught in a cookie jar.
"First off, very cool I'd love to see that. Secondly, try walking first. Don't want you tiring out and getting a nosebleed because you ate too much. If your powers give out midway, I'll have to pick you off the floor again. Plus, walking while full is good for you. I think," Steve says, suppressing a laugh.
El grumbles before standing up and walking over to the couch. Steve laughs to himself thinking how, at the end of the day, Eleven's still just a kid. A kid who can control things with her mind but still a kid who'll do stupid shit with her powers. Maybe once she's better she can try floating herself again.
Maybe she can float me? Steve thinks. Very interesting.
El sits down and rests her head on the raggedy couch. She swears she's just closed her eyes for a minute while Steve cleans up but suddenly she can feel Steve sitting at the other end of the couch. She was also pretty sure she was sitting upright, but now she was laying on the armrest. She can also hear the low volume of the television in front of her.
Did she fall asleep? She didn't notice Steve come over to the couch or that he was watching TV. How long was she out? And ow. A dull pain is throbbing in her head again. She tried to open her eyes but the light from the TV just made her headache worse. She'd use her powers to turn off the TV but she can't even look at it. A groan of pain and frustration escape from her lips.
"Oh, sorry, El," Steve says, getting off the couch to turn off the TV before walking towards El, "Was I too loud? Didn't mean to wake you. You were already asleep by the time I finished cleaning up. How are you feeling?"
El lifts her heavy eyelids and sees Steve's bruised face kneeling over her. He looks like in pain too.
"Head hurt. Like your face," El says before closing her eyes and turning her body away to face the couch's back cushion. That may not be the polite thing to do but burying her head into the couch feels so nice right now.
Steve sighs and rests his back on the base of the couch and lies his head on the couch's seat cushion sharing the space with El, "Yeah… I guess I should've brought medicine instead of soup. So stupid I didn't think of that."
El sits up next to Steve and looks down at his head resting on the couch cushion, "Not stupid. Soup is good."
"Yeah, but medicine would be better," Steve says with eyes half-closed.
"Bathroom," El says flatly.
Steve opens one of his eyes to look up at the teenage girl, "Uh… You have to go?"
El shakes her head no before continuing, "Medicine. Bathroom."
"Oh," Steve says straightening his head so he's sitting on the floor with his back at the base of the couch. He pushes himself off the floor to stand up before heading toward the bathroom. There's a sense of relief that Hopper has some medicine lying around the house and that El didn't have to go. It's dumb but he's not sure if the lab potty trains their kidnap victims or not but that's a question he doesn't really want to know the answer to. Though the answer is probably 'yes, they do' and he's just being an idiot.
As Steve gets to the bathroom, he catches himself in the mirror on the medicine cabinet. Looks like he might've torn a few stitches on his face. That's gonna be a painful first-aid lesson later when he gets home. He pulls the cabinet open and the inside looks like a mess. Just a flurry of medicine packaging stacked on top of each other.
"Do you know what pill Hop was giving you?" Steve asks towards the living room.
"Pink," El replies back.
"Sure, why not. If I can find Gatorade Blue in the supermarket, I can find Medicine Pink in this mess," Steve says to himself.
Steve rummages around for a bit looking for painkillers that would help with the girl's headache and fever. His only clue is pink. He finds a pill bottle in the corner with pink pills inside. Bingo. He brings the pill with him as he exits the bathroom. If it works for headaches, it should work for faceaches. He makes a quick stop in the kitchen to get two glasses of water before going back to the living room.
Steve hands El one of the glasses and shows her the pill bottle, "This looks familiar?"
He opened the pill bottle and shook one pill out of his hand and gave it to the girl.
"That's what the Chief gives you, right?" he asks again.
El nods in confirmation and Steve hands her the pill. She popped the pill in her mouth and washed it down with a glass of water.
"Glad I got that right," Steve says before taking two from the bottle and taking a seat next to El on the couch.
"Sleep here?" El asks.
"Uh, no, just waiting for your da— er, the Chief to come home," Steve says, "Besides I have some homework and face stitching to do."
"But you took medicine," El says tilting her head.
"I don't like where that's headed," Steve says to himself before addressing El, "What do you mean, El?"
"Medicine makes me sleepy," El says matter-of-factly.
"That would've been good to know before I drank two," Steve says grumbling to himself.
El looks at him confused, not quite hearing him.
"Nothing, never mind," Steve says, "I just wasn't expecting to fall asleep, that's all. Plus, I have to watch you 'til Hop gets home."
El shrugs at Steve before yawning fully. She has a drowsy look on her face. It's not long before she falls asleep.
Steve was feeling fine too but seeing El yawn made him yawn and that was the beginning of the end. It was suddenly very exhausting keeping his eyes open.
He feels a weight pressing down on his left side. El is leaning down on his shoulders. He tries to force himself to stand up so El can have the couch to herself but all he managed to do is have his arm slip from trying to stand up and ended up lying down on the couch.
Congratulations, Harrington. You drugged yourself, Steve thinks to himself, and as he drifts to sleep. His final thought is, It could've been worse.
A few hours later, Hopper comes home from the Byers'. Tired and pissed at the government for keeping him away from a sick girl. The anger melts instantly with the sight that greets him: Harrington sprawled out on the couch with Eleven using him as a pillow. The bottle of pills nearby is an easy answer to the heartwarming sight in front of him.
Hopper picks El up off the older teen and tucked her in her bed. He goes back to the living room and he doesn't have it in him to wake up the older teen with a busted face on the couch so he settles with putting a spare blanket over him before going back to his bedroom.
They can figure it out in the morning.